GoPro'ing around the World: a ten day split stay report - VIDEO ADDED - update 10/20

[CaptainCook]

I've never written a Disney trip report before, but I have certainly read my fair share of them. We are back from a recent trip (8/19-8/29) so I think it's only fair that I dive in and give back to the board!

This was a family trip consisting of me (Carrie), my DH Chad, and our two kids, Liam (9) and Mallory (7). This was our third family trip to Disney. We went when the kids were 2 and 4, and again when they were 4 and 6. This time we managed to stay away for 3 whole years before coming back at the ages of 7 and 9. We say this is it for a while, but… well… we'll see.

Here we are, on my favourite night of the trip:



On our first family trip, in 2009, we stayed at All Stars Movies. Last time we went (2011) we decided to live it up, stay at deluxe resorts for the first time, and do a split stay between WL/BC/Poly. That was so much fun that we decided to do another split stay on this trip, but at three different resorts. We did 3 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge, 4 nights at the Boardwalk, and then 3 nights at the Contemporary. We love doing the split stays for a few different reasons. Number one, we get to check out all the fun resorts! Number two, it really cuts down on travel time. We bussed from AKL over to Animal Kingdom on this trip, but at Boardwalk we walked to Epcot and HS and at the Contemporary, well, you can't beat being just steps from the MK!

We had ten day park hopper tickets, and this time around we tried out the water parks, too.

I am a bit of a photo nut and have a loooot of pictures from this trip. Most of them I took, and we also purchased Memory Maker for the first time. Additionally, we always put together a trip video any time we go on vacation, and this time is no exception. I brought a GoPro camera to the parks and am working away at editing a video. The kids keep harassing me to finish it. Patience, young grasshoppers!! We have only been home for two weeks!

Anyway, enough pre-trip report chatter. It's time to get my photos in order and get things started.

 

[CaptainCook]

LINKS TO CHAPTERS

DAY 1 - On the road to Orlando!
DAY 2 - AK all the way! - part 1
DAY 2 - AK all the way! - part 2
DAY 3 - Back to the AK
Day 3 - We finally make it to the MK!
Day 4 - Moving Day #1 and Blizzard Beach
Day 4 - Hopping to Epcot
Day 5 - For the first time in forever… Hollywood Studios
Day 5- For the first time in forever… Hollywood Studios… continued
The video!!
Day 5 - Epcot Evening and Villainy in the Sky
Day 6 - Around the World
Day 6 - Back home to the Boardwalk
Day 7: Crab legs are a go!
Day 8 - Typhoon Lagoon
A side note about resorts

 

[CaptainCook]

DAY 1 - On the road to Orlando!

We started our trip with a really early wake-up call. We were out the door at 5 a.m. to get to the airport for an 8:30 flight. The bags were packed, the house was locked up, we were 20 minutes into our roughly 80 minute drive to the airport… and Chad suddenly looked down and said, "What the heck? I'm wearing the wrong shoes!" Sure enough, he'd put on flip flops to take the garbage out, and was still wearing them. We debated turning around but decided against it since it would have us cutting it close at the airport. He had a couple other pairs of shoes packed so we figured he would manage.

This was all fine and well until another 20 minutes passed and suddenly he blurted out, "Oh no… I forgot the tickets!" Meaning the park tickets. We bought our tickets from Undercover Tourist and they were still in a drawer at home. By this time we knew there was no way we could go back for them and still catch our flight. We debated our options. Our saving grace was that he had linked the tickets to our MDE account. Little did we know that would save our bacon! We had a neighbour checking on our house and feeding our cats while we were gone, and we figured worst case scenario, we could get him to retrieve the tickets and scan or overnight mail them to us. We didn't plan to go to the parks til the second day of our trip anyway. Luckily, it never came to this as the link in MDE worked fine, but at least we had a plan in place so we weren't fretting over things.

We made good time to the airport (which included a border crossing as we live in Ontario, Canada, but fly through Detroit), got some breakfast at McDonald's, and the flight departed on time. We were in Orlando by 11:30 or so and onto ME shortly after that.

Soon enough, we were pulling into AKL!

We checked in and received our Magic Bands. We had booked a standard view room (i.e. parking lot!) and were super excited to see that we were upgraded to a savannah view! We had never been upgraded at a resort before!

We hung out in our room for a bit, checking things out, and then I made a beeline down to the lobby. I had arranged to rent a camera lens from Kingdom Camera rentals and had to pick up the lens at 2 pm. Ron showed up exactly on time and the transaction was completed. I rented a 17-55mm lens and it stayed on my camera for 95% of the trip. It was a great walk around lens. The only lens I brought from home was an ultra wide 8mm lens. Between that, a GoPro, and a point and shoot backup, that was still plenty to schlep around!

Back to the room, and we changed into our swimwear, then went down to the Mara food court to get something to eat before heading out to swim and explore the grounds.

Before we knew it, the afternoon was gone. We had a dinner reservation to get to at Boma, so we went back to our room to clean up, and then went down to dinner. We had eaten at Boma once before, and it was every bit as good as we remembered!

After dinner, I was starting to get pretty tired, but the kids were showing no sign of slowing down. We wandered around the grounds and watched the animals. Since it was cooling down, and they were being fed, they were a lot more active.

There would be night vision goggles available to see the animals once it got dark, and we thought that sounded like fun, but I was struggling to keep my eyes open that long! We watched a bit of the movie they started to play beside the pool, and when the goggles came out, we tried them out. But after that, we headed back to our room pretty quickly. We wanted to be in the park bright and early the next morning.

 

[ProudMommyof2]

Great start and beautiful pictures! I'm in!

 

[CaptainCook]

Welcome Pam! I see you've made a few trips to HHI. We have a week booked there for March Break next year. How did you like it??

 

[ProudMommyof2]

Welcome Pam! I see you've made a few trips to HHI. We have a week booked there for March Break next year. How did you like it??

We absolutely love HHI! Are you staying at the Disney resort? Ask any questions.

 

[marinahendrix]

How exciting!! I've been scouring YouTube for gopro videos from Disney world and they are in low supply! Can't wait to see yours!

 

[nataliej_vk]

Love the start we live in Chatham On and fly out of Detroit as well!!! Last few times the boarder guards have looked at me funny with my mtiple trips

 

[CaptainCook]

We absolutely love HHI! Are you staying at the Disney resort? Ask any questions.

Yes! We are! We love Disney resorts, so we're looking forward to trying one that's not tied to Disney World. Plus, at that time of year we figure it will be too cold to be swimming in the ocean, so we're looking forward to all the other activities that the resort provides. If I think of any Qs I will let you know. To be honest I haven't thought ahead too much to that trip since we had our Florida trip lined up first.

 

[CaptainCook]

Love the start we live in Chatham On and fly out of Detroit as well!!! Last few times the boarder guards have looked at me funny with my mtiple trips

Well small world… we are in Chatham too. Hello, neighbour!

 

[CaptainCook]

How exciting!! I've been scouring YouTube for gopro videos from Disney world and they are in low supply! Can't wait to see yours!

More incentive to get cracking on the movie! I will share the link when it's done.

 

[CaptainCook]

We woke up to our first morning in the World. It was our first park day and we were stoked! Our strategy was to spend our time at AKL at AK, to minimize our transportation time. If I remember correctly, I am pretty sure this day was EMH. We got to the park before it opened but it took a while to get through bag check/Magic Band scanning. Eventually we got through, and headed straight back to Kilimanjaro Safaris. That's always our first stop in AK.

Our second stop was Kali River Rapids. As we walked up to Kali, the line was huge. I mean, it snaked out of the ride queue, past Yak and Yeti, past Flights of Wonder, and practically back to Africa. We couldn't figure out what was going on so we stopped and asked. It was news to me that Kali doesn't open until 9 a.m. and so people were lined up outside the queue, not in it. We decided to get in line since the line was not AS bad as it initially appeared. I don't remember how long it took us to get to the front, but it was not a terribly long wait after all.

The thing about Kali, and about this trip in general, is that Mallory did not want to ride it. She went into this trip wanting to ride It's a Small World on repeat and essentially do nothing else, try nothing new, etc. By contrast, Liam was determined to ride every ride once, now that he was tall enough. Mallory is more timid overall, but we also know that once we convince her to try something, she generally ends up loving it. So we didn't give her a choice about riding some rides. This was one of them - she did not want to be there, but we said we were riding and that was that. Most of the time, we were good at predicting what she would like. (Not always. )

I am glad we forced this one on her, because she loved it. LOVED it. And we would go on to ride it multiple times over the course of this trip, by her request. And because we happened to visit Disney during the hottest stinking week of the summer, we really needed the cool-off this ride provides!

I don't have any more shots of the ride after this one… one of the drawbacks of trying to do both photos and video to record the trip. Sometimes I have photos but no video of an event, or vice versa. It all works out in the end but may leave some visual holes along the way here.

Anyway… after Kali, Chad and Liam decided to try Dinosaur. We knew Mallory would not like that ride at all, so she and I spent our time on Triceratops Spin and played in the Boneyard for a bit. (We made the right call here; Dinosaur scared the crap out of Liam, too.) And then we had a reservation to make... it wouldn't be a trip to AK without a breakfast at Tusker House.

I was bummed that Donald no longer meets outside. Even though we had Memory Maker, somehow we missed getting a family shot outside in the designated photo spot. And then, to make matters worse, I also really missed the little chocolate croissants that Tusker House always used to have… are those gone now, or did we miss them because our reservation was at the tail end of the breakfast period? I'm not sure. But I love the jungle juice, and I ate enough bacon to more than make up for it. I think Disney has the best bacon in the world.

We were not on the dining plan on this trip. On a split stay, you could theoretically use the dining plan for one leg of your stay, which is what we did last time - 3 nights of dining plan and then when we moved to our second and third resorts, we took the room discount. For this trip, the dining plan was not offered to Canadians during our trip when we first booked it, so we took the room discount for all three legs of the trip. We also bought our park tickets from Undercover Tourist, and you need to book a package to get free dining. Closer to our trip, free dining did open up to Canadians, but we were satisfied with our room discount and Undercover Tourist discount.

(I hope I got all that right - Chad did the booking and was more in the weeds on the details than I was.)

Luckily we did not freeze during our breakfast - we were still pretty wet from Kali, and the air conditioning was blasting.

After breakfast, we tried a new-to-us attraction - Flights of Wonder. It was a pretty good show.

And then, we had a FP+ for Kali, and now that Mallory loved it, it was a no-brainer. Back we went for another soaking.

There's nothing like taking a lovely family portrait when your clothes are half soaked, right? Clearly I took a wave on my right hand side...

And with that, it was time to leave the park. We are midday break people. Not so much because the parks get crowded, but because (a) it's just too damn hot in August in Florida to be out there after 1 or 2 p.m. (especially this year) and (b) we enjoy the resort pools a lot, and love taking the opportunity to hang out there in the afternoon.

To be continued...

 

[CaptainCook]

We hopped on the bus back to AKL. This week in Florida was particularly hot, and I think AK is the hottest of all the parks. We needed to cool off. So we headed back to our room, picking up a few treats along the way.

Nothing says "I am at Disney" like Mickey head-shaped food!

We headed back down to the pool area, and spent some time splashing around. The CMs were out running pool party games, but the kids have never really been interested in joining in, no matter how much encouragement we give them. :roll eyes: So we just paddled around lazily. I remember commenting to Chad that really, the pool was too warm to be refreshing. It felt like being in people soup. I'm guessing there is nothing the resort can do about it when it's that hot and sunny out, and I'm also guessing that most people prefer it that way. I like my pool water right around 80F, thankyouverymuch!

We left the pool, cleaned up for dinner, and headed back to AK. We had a FP+ for FOTLK.

It was the first time we saw the show in the new Harambe Theatre, which to be honest, seemed exactly like the old theatre to me. We are only occasional Disney visitors and I am sure those who know better than I would know more about the differences!

We grabbed a snack and then headed over to Kilimanjaro Safaris again. We'd never gone on an evening safari. This was the first trip we took where the kids were old enough to stay at the parks past dark, really, and I was pretty excited by that. For example: I'd never been in AK when the lights came on...

Liam wanted to try Primeval Whirl, another ride in his quest to do all the thrill rides. Mallory had zero interest, of course. So Chad went with Liam, and Mallory and I watched on the exit ramp. There was hardly any wait so it didn't take long for them to whiz by us.

Liam loved it so much that he asked me to ride it with him again right afterwards. Chad took Mallory over to the Boneyard to play while Liam and I rode. We thought we'd be off the ride in no time, but we were wrong. First, the line was horrendous. It wasn't long; it just wasn't moving. Finally we got on about 25 minutes after we lined up. The posted wait was only 5 or 10. Liam remarked that it wasn't the same side he had just ridden; it was the other side. We thought that was kind of strange since they only had one side opened. Well sure enough… we got loaded into our car and we moved maybe ten feet. And then the ride broke. Luckily, we had not left the loading area, and they were able to unload us straight away. The ride was down for a while and of course there were people stuck at the top of the track. For us, it was more of an annoyance than anything, and they shuttled us back to the side of the ride that Liam originally rode, loaded us up, and off we went.

The only reason I was even mildly annoyed was that the park was closing, and soon, and the kids really wanted to do another run on Kali before it closed. Liam and I were off the ride probably ten minutes before the park closed. We raced over to the Boneyard to find Chad and Mallory and then the four of us hoofed it through the park to Kali. We got there with little time to spare, entered the queue, and rode the rapids under a beautiful late evening sky.

The lights were on in the Kali area too and it was beautiful!

When we got off the ride, the park was officially closed, so we slowly started making our way to the front. Since we were already wet, the kids decided to get just a little bit wetter...

And then we lucked out and ran into one of the "custodial water artists" (is there another name for them?) We essentially followed this young lady to the front gates, and were lucky to see her sketch out three or four characters along the way. Well played, Disney. She was like the Pied Piper, luring a bunch of guests to the front of the park… time to get out!!

We took the hint and we left. We took the bus back to AKL and on our way back to our room, a bit peckish still, we stopped in at the Mara for a flatbread pizza snack before calling it a night.

 

[ProudMommyof2]

What a great day! It is tough when one of your kids will not ride a ride you know they will like. I have been"that parent" that insists when I know they will like it

I love AK at night. Everest when the lights are on is awesome!

 

[Punchy]

Great report and beautiful photos!

I've never been to AK at night, I didn't know they stayed open past dusk and had no idea they even had lights. It looks amazing.

Keep up the report, I'll be following along.

 

[DisneyAndrew]

Wow, I never catch a TR in its infancy. Without fail, every TR I find that seems interesting to me started 3 or 4 months ago. So, I'm super stoked to be subbing to one so early.

I know what you mean about the heat. We were in the World last year during the second week of September and it was HOT!! And, you are right about AK being hotter than the other parks. I have that same experience at every zoo I go to also. Something about those animals I guess.

Beautiful photos. You've got me looking at the place where you rented the camera equipment from. I didn't know they did that, but that seems pretty cool to me, and not outrageously priced.

Glad to be following along and can't wait to see more!

 

[Sisa]

Joining in for your TR.

Glad leaving the tickets at home didn't cause a big problem and it all worked out.

Yay for a room upgrade! How awesome is that?!

I LOVE all your photos, beautiful! Especially AK at night, just amazing and the shot of Kali at night. Wow, incredible!

Can't wait to read more!

 

[CaptainCook]

Welcome newbies and thanks for reading! It makes it a lot more fun to post this stuff knowing that someone may actually be reading it.

This morning we were up early, had a quick food court breakfast at the hotel, and were on the bus to AK. We got there in time for park opening and again headed straight back to Kilimanjaro Safaris. I don't have a ton of safari photos. I find that now that we've been to Disney a few times, I take less photos of the rides and scenery and things like that that don't change. Fewer photos overall, really. Again - it's the video camera effect! We had a good safari though. I like the fact that they've taken the poacher storyline out of it. Change is good once in a while.

And then, it wouldn't be a day at AK without a ride on Kali. Because of course now Mallory thought it was the best ride ever!!

Liam wanted to go back to Primeval Whirl and Mallory was happy to go back to the Boneyard, so we split up for a bit. But we came back together in time for a FP+ to Finding Nemo. I thought this was a good use of a FP+ as it got us some great seats for the show - much better than the ones we had last time we saw it. And I really, really love this show.

After the show, it was time for the highlight of the day. We had FP+ for Liam to ride Expedition Everest. Chad had ridden it before and said it was a one and done for him. I had never tried it but was willing to go along with Liam. And so we parted ways, and Liam and I queued up.

Well, as luck would have it, Liam hated the ride. He was screaming in terror pretty much the whole way through. I had warned him that part of it would be backwards and part of it would be in the dark, though I was surprised by just how long that part of the ride was. When we got off, Liam was happy to have done it, but by no means did he want to ride it again.

I was proud of him for trying and hey, he got me to try it, too. I would do it again… if I had someone to ride with!!

The funny thing though is, look at this ride photo - he looks like he's loving it! Truthfully, this must have been the only part of the ride where he smiled. All the GoPro footage we have from the ride (which turned out awesome!) shows him scared to death.

After our EE adventure, it was time for lunch, and we had an ADR at one of my very favourite restaurants in all the World: Yak and Yeti. I just love this place! I ordered the potstickers and a side of fried rice, and had the mango pie for dessert. Mmmmm.

Chad and I cracked up as we were seated at the exact same table as we were on our last trip three years ago. Funny how stuff like that sticks with you!

After lunch… we went back to Kali… AGAIN. We had FP+ for it and zipped through a line that was posted at 80 minutes. I know people have mixed opinions about the whole FP+/Magic Band thing, but for us, it worked pretty flawlessly. We aren't really commando in our touring style and we hopped quite a bit so we never pulled a 4th FP+. The lines were never really long enough to warrant waiting in a line to avoid waiting in a line - one of the saving graces of going at the end of August - and because we had multiple days in each park, we were able to ride our favourites more than once without having to rely on a 4th FP+ to do so.

We left the park a little earlier today than we did yesterday. We had plans for the evening that involved a park other than AK… this was our third day at Disney and we had yet to be to the Magic Kingdom! So we meandered toward the exit. As we did, we stopped to do a bit of shopping.

This trip would be our first foray into pin trading. We brought some starter pins with us and picked up some lanyards once we got to Disney, and then we set about finding some CMs to trade with. More to come!!

 

[HeadintheClouds]

Love your pics! We have a GoPro also and I love it! Can't wait to read more!

 

[NPRinLA]

Just started following along! Amazing pictures!